Brad Hart Interviews Cole Gordon About His Million Dollar MM. CEO Closers.io $0 to $30M in 3 years.

Foreign.

Welcome to make more marbles. Today I have a very special guest, Mr. Cole Gordon. So excited to have you.

Cole.

Thank you for being here.

Happy to be here, dude. Anytime. I'm happy to spend time with you, dude.

I appreciate that. Thank you for saying that. And it's been such a pleasure to watch you grow and just expand. Like Jasmine was saying earlier, you're like a stealth savage. Like, we won't talk for six months or a year and like, you know, a bunch of stuff will have happened. You'll have completely transformed your business. You'll have raised the bar yet again. I call you the Honey Badger when you're not around, you know, because you're just getting after it all the time. It's awesome. If you guys haven't watched that YouTube video, do yourself a favor and go Google the Honey Badger. You'll see exactly what I'm talking about. Nicole, basically you're known for a few different things. I'd love for you just to kind of give us a quick background how you got to where you're at now. And just for anybody who hasn't heard of you before, give them a little bit of an update.

Yeah, well, I, you know, I, I was in the good old, like medical school track and I was going to go be a doctor. I thought that was how you made money. And so I, I read this book. It really changed kind of my paradigm on if you want to be successful and make money, you know, get into business and not obviously be a lawyer or a doctor or whatever. I kind of realized I was in, I was in the whole like sort of conditioning of what success meant. Right. And so, you know, I read that book and then like from that point on I was like, okay, I'm going to start a business. I tried to do this blogging thing, was like terrible at that. Tried to, I didn't even really try. And then eventually, just after a bunch of floundering, started an agency that continued to be more floundering. And then I have a special place in my heart about high ticket programs because I was floundering until I joined. My first high ticket program was only 4K, which I thought was like an immense amount of money. Which program does that? Her name was Kat Howe. So I don't know if you know who that is, but she, I don't think she teaches agency owners anymore, but she was teaching agency owners at the time and she was really great. Like, I mean, to be honest, once I got that accountability and coaching, I went from 0 to like 52k in the 8 weeks. And so I was doing some revenues with my agency, but you know, I was so young and immature and had no skills. So I just, as much as I was making the money, it was like I wasn't really making any profit, but I thought I was. So I quit my job and then like I ended up just with no money. So, you know, my deal with myself was that when I my bank account went below $1,000, I was going to go get into sales, you know, and I kind of call like sales is like the military of business.

Yeah, like boot camp.

I'm getting into sales, you know, so, you know, I get into sales and I thought I'd be really good because I was decent at selling the agency stuff or I thought I was. In hindsight I was really bad. But I thought I'd be good at the sales thing. And I closed my first call ever. And then after that I think I went over 30 and thankfully I didn't get fired. Who knows that could even change my trajectory altogether, But I went over 30. I was the worst guy on the team. I was terrible. And I was on the team also with Savages. They were all like door to door guys and they were all really good. So I kind of went from the being the best person and then really worked my way up to the top by the time I, you know, I left there and then I went to another company and another company and after that I was always like the top person. And then eventually I started my own sales coaching stuff, which turned into sales team consulting, which turned into recruiting, and then that also turned into certification. So, you know, it's kind of been that evolution, you know, But I think the first year I did a couple million, I think, you know, maybe like 2 or 3 million. Most of it was in the back half of the year. That's when we really started to explode. And then last year, I believe it was, I want to say 17 billion total. And then this year, you know, we should be pacing probably just really we should be over 30 based on our growth rate. But if we just did what we did now and extrapolated it, we may be like 28 or 29.

Like so you're in year three of starting this company and we're calling it Closers I.O.

Or is it something that's the company Closer Closers I.O.

As you check it out there and you're on track to do 30 million this year, which is an incredible feat and just an amazing achievement. So congratulations, first and foremost, it's been awesome. To see the trajectory go like just exponential. Hockey stick. What do you think changed for you there? Was that probably a moment or several moments where you kind of made that decision. So you made this deal with yourself. A thousand bucks. Like what can. What other like mindset pieces or habit pieces kind of came in along the way that allowed you to be that successful?

Yeah. Well, let's walk through kind of the shifts, right. So, you know, the first shift was realizing that if I wanted to make money, you do it through sales or entrepreneurship, not by, you know, making money through being a doctor. Like that should be a vocation, not a money making career for a long time.

I'm with you. I was going to be Dr. Hart, the cardiologist. So I'm right there. Got it.

Yeah, that was the first thing. I got that from a book. And then the second thing is, you know, what happened was I really realized, man, I could be really good at this thing because I recognized about myself even at a young age. I was like, man, this agency thing, I'm learning so much shit at once. I have no resources and I have one coach. And it just was so hard. And I was like, dude, if I could just focus on one skill, I would really. I was like, I know I could just. Worst case, I could go back into business and I would have this skill, right? I'd be really good at this thing. And I think what's important about that is a good takeaway is that like really your, your, your income is going to be equivalent to your skills. Right. So the first go I had was sales. Then I had. And actually before I developed a sales skill, I actually knew how to buy media pretty well because I was running my agency. So I guess you could say the first thing I had really was media buying. Then I had sales. And then eventually during my sales career, I got good at copywriting. So like I started to build these skills and skill stack. And I think it's really important. I know there's a lot of stuff on like who, not how and stuff. But even if you're not gonna, even if you're gonna find a who, it's like you don't really know how to hire a great who until you actually know how. And it doesn't mean you have to do the work, but you have to inspect what you expect. So it's like, I can hire a great copywriter cause I know what great copy looks like. Cause I've written great copy, you know. And so I think a lot of people will read like a Dan Sullivan book, which, it's a great book obviously, but I think they're like, they're like, oh, who die how? And then they just, they, they don't know how to hire those positions because they don't have the underlying expertise or at least understanding of it. Right. So to digress, I built like kind of a skill stack and that served me well through my company because when I started the company, a lot of the sales trainers are really good at sales training. Like, I mean, at least the ones I was comparing myself to, I was like, well, you know, Eli's really, really good. You know, I didn't know Jeremy Minor at the time, but like, you know, he's great. Uh, Brad Newman was really good, you know, so I'm like, man, like all these. And my sales training was really good too. You know, obviously I think I have the best sales training.

Yeah, I joined it. It was awesome.

So anyways, it's like I, you know, I knew my product was good, but I was like, man, there's a lot of other people who are really good, so how am I going to set myself apart? And what I decided was all of these sales trainers weren't, weren't good at ads and running like operations and like running a company and copywriting too. They weren't good at that. So kind of the other thing that was a big pivotal point and lesson is when I decided to really go where my competition wasn't and master what they hadn't mastered. And instead of who not howling, I just did it myself. You know, the beginning phases, right? And so there was that I would say the final thing in that, you know, because, because after that shift that took my business from zero to like, you know, I was about like 100 to 100k a month. But I was very much like pounding the organic and doing the sales calls myself. And it was, I was able to get to a high range like that because what I would do is the organic calls I would get. I'd close like all of them because I was really good. And I would retain a lot of my customers and I would upsell them because they were all working with me personally. So I would just, I could upsell no problem. And so I got to like, you know, 150ish, maybe even 200, like by myself with like an assistant and a part time coach. And then the next big shift was when I decided to do the recruiting and I found the right people to help me run the recruiting. And it sort of productized the business around an offer that Was scalable with advertising. That had a much, much more higher demand because, like, sales training is just not that appealing with advertising. It's very tough to sell. It's very, very tough. You know, and same with sales. Like, sales training is like, more for sales teams, sales coaching for individuals, the same thing. The recruiting aspect. I was like, man, there's demand on this. I know it'll work with ads. So once we got that dialed, we launched ads, and then that's when we really started to see the explosive growth. The other thing I'd add in there, too, is like, you can maybe get to a 4 to 5 million a year, it depends. But 4 to 5 million a year, let's call it by yourself. Not by yourself, but by yourself. Maybe you manage your sales rep, you manage a few coaches, you manage your media buying team. You're kind of just the general manager. But to really get to 10 million, you got to have a great team. So I'm like, really fortunate to have an incredible team who's just studs, you know, and a really, really, really great executive team that just helps me run the company. And we wouldn't. Wouldn't be able to do it without that beyond that. So I'd say probably from 4 million to 30 is all that. Like, it's all me leading them so they can lead people and we can continue to build and service our clients and all that stuff.

Yeah. I think every time I talk about you as a case study or, you know, give people examples of something that really works, I always talk about this concept of being a triple threat. Like, if you can learn one of these skills, you'd be successful. But it's high ticket sales, direct response copy, and leadership. And you have all three, and you built all three working for other organizations. So that when you came into the entrepreneurship game, I was like, oh, I'm ready. And you just had that confidence. Like, I remember the first time I met you, you're in my kitchen closing a deal on the phone. Who the hell is this guy? I'm sitting on the counter just watching you close.

Yeah, I think I have my shirt on. It's very, very true. Yeah.

So did you make $15,000 in my kitchen?

Well, that's the other thing is as well, is that a very key advantage I had is I was a part of traffic and funnels when they had this massive growth spurt. Right. And granted, like, out of anybody who's left traffic in funnels, I've obviously, you know, I've done the best. I mean, not that that's taken away. There's tons of other people freaking crushed it too. So I'm not taking away from them. And, and I've also had a, you know, it's not just me, I've had a great team. But so I'm not saying, well, that was because that was, that was the reason. But I will say that the key of that, what that really helped me with was that I was in an organization that had a tremendous growth spur and I was able to see the things that like, I was able to see how the eight figure company operated. I was, you know, how it was led and how it was managed in the departments. And that was good because there was a lot of things I took from that. But there were certain things that, you know, I kind of disagreed with and I wanted to do my own style. So that's why getting into the like, I always tell this to people trying to get into like entrepreneurship, to be honest, especially if they're like super beginners. And everybody hates this advice because nobody takes it. But I'm always like, find the industry you're passionate about and also find a company you really respect within that industry or that's like a rocket ship company and go work for them. Especially if they're like kind of in the startup phase or like, maybe not startup, but like post startup. But they're also not a big company. You know, they're really like exploding. There's that upward mobility. I always just say like, go work for that company because then you actually see what a good company looks like. And I took the things I liked, I took the things I didn't like and I sort of created my own culture from that. And I was able to get it like that because I learned it from osmosis. So that, that is a huge, huge thing that I had a massive advantage on that almost. I mean, not very many people have. And it's. I never even realized how big of an advantage was. And so I started coaching business owners on really trying to scale their companies and leadership. And it's like, man, they just don't get some of this stuff.

I think ego is a big part of it too. Like I've been in business 10 plus years now and I've had a lot of failures and I've had a few successes. We had seven figures a couple of times in companies, but. But I've never made it to the eight figure mark. And I always like to joke like, I'm better at managing money than I am at keeping it. Like if I had no ego. I should be like, yo, bro, give me a job. I'll go work in your sales department just to see how it's done. I'll give you a year or whatever and learn it all and then go back to doing my business. I'd probably do a lot better in the long run. It's kind of like shift downshifting to go faster than just trying to go into a higher gear you're not ready for.

Yeah, it's super true. Yeah. It's hard to do, though. It's like, oh, man. Cause you can, you know. Cause there's also another opportunity where you could, like, make, like, triple the money, you know, or, like, quadruple the money. And it's like, well, I can make a nice, like, 80k a month, or I could, like, make 20 in a sales department. Right.

So have you had anybody that does that? Has they come in as an entrepreneur or season, or maybe they've exited and they want to work for you? Is that.

I mean, not. Not somebody who's maybe exited and they're, like, in there, you know, oh, I just made 10 mil, and I just want to be a sales rep now. I haven't had that. And I would be kind of like. I would be like, man, do you really have the hunger to be able to work?

It'd be a little sus.

Yeah, that would be the only thing. But, I mean, we do have a tremendous amount of people who have made money and even done seven figures with their companies, but they kind of just burned out. Or like, the other thing is, too, is, like, dude, like, I've also recognized I'm in a season where, you know, I'm single. I'm not really trying to get married anytime soon. I'm not really trying to have kids anytime soon. I also have a tremendous amount of energy. I don't get sick. I haven't been sick in six years.

Wow.

So it's like, you know, and I have massive stamina. So I kind of realized, like, you know, that is a. That's a huge advantage. And, like, for me, like, that season, like, I'm really pushing pedal of the metal. I forgot what. I was telling you that for a reason, but. Oh, because there's certain entrepreneurs who they had that season, and maybe they only hit, like, you know, 200 grand a month or something in their company. So they're taking home maybe 50 to 70. So they stack some cash. But they're at a point where now they're getting married, they're having kids. Their energy is maybe not as high. And they're like, dude, like, I just really love what you guys are doing. I love the mission and I want to come close for you and you know, certain roles with me. Like the person I'm actually thinking about as I'm saying this, who's on our team, like, you know, he makes like 30 to 35,000amonth. So he's making pretty close to probably what he was making in the business.

You get to turn your brain off completely and just show up and close for the most part has higher standards than that.

But yeah, and I don't want to.

Say compared to running a business yourself.

It'S probably tremendously less stress, for sure.

And less risk too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because you've got a comparison. So here's a, here's a curveball question. Maybe you've been asked to before if you couldn't do sales or you had to think of like, what's another niche that could be scaled like the one you're talking about? What is it? Or what have you thought about?

Cause I remember that's, that's a great question. So my answer would depend on if I have the money I have now or if I was restarting. So I'll, I'll get both answers. I actually was thinking about this today because I was, I don't know, I was getting beat up today. So I was, you know, I was thinking about, man, if I didn't do this, what would I be doing instead? So I think now if I couldn't do, well, sales or I couldn't do the high ticket business thing, because that's really what my thing is now is like, where I'm great at scaling high ticket businesses, probably one of the best in the industry. So if I couldn't do that, I would probably raise money and do some sort of real estate acquisitions and just. And like start with my capital and then start leveraging it and acquire multifamily and you know, multifamily short term rental units and storage and, you know, just, just a different portfolio.

Jen and Stacy did a thousand doors last year.

Yeah, there you go.

So there's some killers out there.

Yeah. So I would do something along those lines and I would do it full time because, you know, it's funny, I dabbled in it enough to understand it a little bit. But I also realized what's funny is like I, I kind of did it myself for a little bit. I was like, oh, I'm gonna like do all this real estate stuff myself because I'm Smart. And then I realized like, okay, like honestly if I did go all in, I know I would learn this and be good at it. But I don't have time to go all in. So now I just, now I just give my money to funds. So it's like kind of funny how it came full circle like that. I was like, ah. So like, because once you realize how much work it takes to do something well. And you know the saying, it's like if you're gonna do something, you gotta do it well. So it's like once you know how much money, how much work it actually takes. I was like man, like I know how to do a short term rental like portfolio really well. Like I know what one would look like. But realistically the I, if I put that same amount of energy into just building my company, I'm going to make tremendously amount more money.

You could add an extra zero to your income or try to work two jobs and fail at both, you know.

Yeah. So you know, I'm, I'm kind of like that would maybe be an option is some sort of thing like that. Because I mean that's, it's not a, you're not going to get the insane cash flow you get from the high ticket stuff, but you're going to get like good stable wealth essentially. Now if I couldn't do the sales, what I would do instead is I would do some sort of copywriting or lead generation. Like if I was just starting off like I can tell you a great example of what would work for somebody really well right now is there's a certain type of funnel we run for our company. It's a very short VSL and it's not that hard to write. But entrepreneurs typically have trouble with it. And the deal is, dude is like entrepreneurs, as they get more busy, they have less time for deep work and that makes it really hard to create good sales copy that converts. So they typically don't do well with producing good long form YouTube videos, which I mean I'm not doing that either. So I'm not judging but, or via cells, you know. And I even say like even now, I mean everything I write is pretty good. But you know, still like it doesn't compare to what I, what I used to do way back in the day in terms of how much effort I put into it.

Right.

So anyways, that's neither here nor there. So like one thing that somebody could do as a skill to make a lot of money is learn some of these short form BSLs. That's working for companies like mine and create an offer teaching or basically done for you writing these for companies. And you could do it for a percentage or you know, for X amount of money or whatever because people really want it, but they don't want to do it. And you know, I would do that. And also potentially, you know, hell, if you want the back end, you could really build a company out of run the media. But that would be a good one now, you know, granted. Or, or, and then I would eventually maybe morph that into like a done with you coaching program so you're not like, you know, have a huge pain in the ass doing a bunch of done for you work. But that would be a great option. So I would think about something like that. Like, you know, any income producing skill, copywriting, media buying, sales, you know, if you're into development, like obviously that's a huge in demand skill right now.

But I think media buying would be great because you could insert media buyers in your business. One of the things that's so special about your business is you put the setters and the seller, the closers into the business and then it's their employee, not, you know, some outsourced sales team which like you said, it doesn't really work that well. I think that's what the whole industry shifting towards is like go to the source, find the one, put it in your business and then you own it and move forward.

Yeah, yeah, I would totally agree, dude. I mean when I started that I, I always knew about the recruiting and like done for you and I was kind of the model when I came in and there was, you know, there was another guy who was doing recruiting, but he wasn't that, he wasn't that big. And I was like, okay, he's kind of doing okay. But I really didn't want to do the done for you because I just come from traffic and funnels and I really had this strong conviction that like this outsourced done for you sales thing is just a mess. Like it's not a good business model for me and like, I don't even think it's like the best thing for the client. Like all the top companies doing eight figures all have it in house. So like why would you want it outsourced?

Yeah, it doesn't make any kind of sense.

So. So yeah, like, I mean that, that's why I really kind of blended the recruiting side with sort of the consulting side I already had. So it was sort of this like hybrid together.

So really like you kept really lean in the beginning, you got it to 100, 150k. You had, like, maybe a couple people working for you. Do you think it got easier after you started to scale with the team or harder, or did you have to learn new things or was it just different? Like, how do you.

Yeah, let me, Let me walk through it. So to be honest, once I bulked up the team to about six people, we exploded to about 600,000amonth. And that explosion, I don't know, it was stressful, but in some ways it was easier for me because I wasn't doing everything by myself. And then in January, we launched our certification, and there was some work front loaded with that in terms of trainings that needed to produce or course content. So, you know, that. That was some heavy lifting in the beginning, but once that got kind of underway, that started to explode. And to be honest, we went from like 600. Like, we went from 150 to 600 in probably four months. And then we went from. What did you say? 150, 600. Okay. Then we were 600 to 2 million a month in eight months, maybe nine months. And that was extremely fast. And it seemed extremely. I don't want to say it seemed extremely easy because, like, I'm sure if I, like, wound back the clock, there were some times where there was.

You had help and you had like eight players in those positions.

I had hope. I had eight players. You know, I had a great team, and I was recruiting the right people. And we just had a. We just were, you know, and it's also easier, man, when you have a lot of momentum. You know, it's like we had tons of momentum. So fun. It's so fun.

But it was another thing, whether you recognize it or not, you have this tailwind effect, right? Because you're doing the thing consistently every day and learning in that niche that you're also teaching. Like, it's not like you're. You're out here selling, you know, widgets, but you're. You're trying to figure out sales. Like, you're doing sales, you're teaching sales, you're learning sales. And it's all like a flywheel effect that grows the company faster. Would you agree with that?

Yeah. Yeah, it is. I mean, what really helps is on. On one side, you know, we have the. We have the B2B side, which obviously. So let me, Let me, let me explain it this way. Once the B2C side started to really grow, that. That company was a lot more like our clients because the, the B2B offer I have is very unique. Like, not many people have anything that's even like that, let alone at the scale. So that is a very different business. And I'll tell you what it is. You know, I just got done with saying it wasn't that hard from those areas. But I will say, like, building the recruiting arm is terrifyingly hard. It's amazing we even did it, to be honest. It's like the only thing I think that could be harder is building a really complex software because it's kind of similar stuff, but instead of code, it's a bunch of systems, processes, and people, and it's all. And you gotta keep it.

I'll say, hell yeah on that real quick, guys. That's a hell yeah right there.

Yeah, sorry.

That's JJ in the background there.

He's just nice.

So.

So, yeah, that was tough. But honestly, once I was building, I had a good leader to kind of manage it. You know, it took off pretty fast, but was nice. Is that on the B2C side, the client, like, that company was a lot more like our clients because it was more of a group coaching program. The price point wasn't as high. It was more, you know, I don't say bizarre, but, like, it was more kind of like vc. So there's a lot of other clients we're recruiting salespeople for, so that gave us great perspective on how to coach these other folks, if that makes sense.

Yeah. So I have a lot of respect for the fact that you're willing to do the dirty work and figure it out before you hand it off. But then you also have a high standard of hiring only A players and superstars like you talked about. And I watched a really great interview. I don't know if you have a short link to share with people or if it's relevant to this conversation, but you essentially, like, did a Mastermind presentation at the very end you gave the slides. I thought it was really great. Do you think it's easier to do the job yourself first and then hand it off to the A players or just find the A player that has the skill set?

I would say always. I mean, the exception is, you know, depends on the industry and how you're recruiting. So, like, people read these books who, not how. And, like, they read all this stuff where it's like, you know, you want to be the orchestrator and not the person playing the music and all these things. And, dude, I'm not refuting that. Like, I 100% believe that that's true. However, in Our industry, like running a high ticket sales team is very different from running a software sales team. I don't care what anybody says, it's different dude, they're different sales. It's just, it's software's way easier, just so you know, way easier than high ticket sales. Now building software and getting product market fit tremendously harder, tremendously harder than what we had to do.

You don't spin it up on a.

Google document as a whole is harder but you know, to run the sales team harder over here. Same thing with the marketing is like marketing with like the high ticket direct response stuff. There is some other industries that are a little bit more like you can go into like the low ticket stuff, you know, you could find some marketing a players that have done the job in different industries, but it's a little bit more hard, right? And it goes the same thing with these other positions. So while I think like if you're starting a software company or you're buying a company that's more of a traditional type of business, like you could hire some really great recruiters or do the recruiting yourself and you could, you know, through giving away equity, your profit share, really recruit, especially if you have funding, really recruit some amazing talent just right from the get and you can kind of assemble the company opposed to having to build it from scratch, you know. So I think you could do that in a lot of different industries that have been a little bit more established. Whereas in this industry, and maybe this is just me thinking our industry is a special snowflake. I'm aware of that. But you know, it's, I'll just be honest, like dude, it's really hard to find truly good sales managers, at least the ones that are up to my standards. It's pretty tough. You know, our clients will like, they'll go out there and oh, I found one and it's like, ah, he's not really that good.

Is it a generational thing too? Because you think like, you know, people have a lot of experience, they might have been doing it for 30 years and come over and might do it better than somebody who's just starting out. Because it's a people game at the end of the day. They have a lot more experience than people. I don't know. Just the thought.

Yeah, well, I'm not, I'm not too sure on what do you mean by that.

Yeah, I guess, I guess what I mean is when you think of a good sales manager, you think of somebody's been in sales for a long time, right? It's not typically a 20 year old kid who's coming off the off the block being good at sales managing. They've probably been managing people for 10 plus years. Or do you think it's a skill that you could just learn and go from, from scratch?

Well, here's what I'm saying especially with the high ticket side. So like I would imagine as a software sales manager or the manager of a call center, like it's just one of those things where you don't have to be as good just candidly with this. It's like so many of the sales they're high ticket right? So they're higher price point. All the products are completely intangible. So it's like not all of them. I mean you might have a done for you service I suppose but like you're not selling a thing. Like a lot of times you're selling an idea or a promise, right? You're selling coaching. So that makes it harder. They're way more emotional a lot of times so that makes it harder. On the same time it's not like the salesperson just prospecting and then like they're closing their own people. I mean that could be the model that you could have here. But generally it's through ads. So if the salesperson also doesn't work out there's a much greater opportunity cost of the business. So you kind of culminate all those factors in and it just is like you need a very, very good one. And, and typically when I've seen managers come over from other industries, they don't do as good. And I'm not saying one couldn't. I think if, I think you know, door to door is probably the closest industry that could do good because you got some pretty, you know, savages over there. But generally man like it's, it's just, I have not seen the crossover work very well. So to go back to your original question, I personally think as an entrepreneur you should really learn the sales management aspect first and then transfer that skill to somebody else because it's just so hard to hire from the outside. And even the same with how you run your marketing department because it's just very you. You might find a good marketing director but it's pretty tough. Like I mean I think that's more likely than sales manager but it is like to truly find somebody who's going to get it, you know, like. Cause I want to hire and poach this person and pay them all this money. Well they, I want them to like come in and Just like know what to do. Like Steve Jobs says, like we hire you, not so I can tell you what to do so you could tell me what to do. So it's like, that's what I want. If I'm going to be poaching this like executive from this company who's going to want, you know, all this stuff, I just, I think there's just too much ramp up in a lot of these situations. So you're just, you're better off just finding somebody with the intangibles and home growing. And I think that's just because this industry is so new. You know, there hasn't been a lot of eight figure, I don't say a lot of eight figure companies. There is a lot of eight figure companies in this industry when you, when you consider high ticket and low ticket and all this stuff. But generally it's nowhere near, you know, software, tech or any of those types of things.

It's more uncommon for sure.

I think generally it's better for people to develop their own skills and transfer it to their folks.

And I want to transfer over to masterminds here. But I just want to make one last point is the other thing is a lot of people get in this industry because they want a lifestyle business. That's why I got into it. Right. I was working in hedge funds, I was working in real estate. I wanted something that was more conducive to lifestyle and travel. I wasn't trying to build the biggest shop on the block. You came at it with just tenacity and you're like, I'm going to build the biggest thing I can as quickly as possible. And you did that. It's just not common that people like you get into this industry and really go after it. So I think it was wide open.

Yeah, but I will say this, I will say this though, dude, like, even though, okay, I built, you know, a $30 million year company, I think the caliber of my team and a different opportunity vehicle could be a $250 million company.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

And it's just, it's just one of those things. I mean, granted, like you could play that game. Oh, the caliber of my team and a smaller opportunity could be a $10 million company. Like, okay, we could play that game as much as you want. But I do think a lot of it is the opportunity that you're in and the boat that you're rowing. Right. Because there is limits to growth with all of this stuff. So I think it depends like the economics of A, you know, there's just certain companies I know, like whether it's software or, you know, I work with Agora for instance, and like sometimes like the teams I will see in these companies, I'm like, man, those are not as good as my team, but they're doing way better than me. Right. And it's just like a different model, it's a different opportunity. So just something to keep in mind.

Yeah, that'd be interesting to see if you ever transition because you're obviously somebody who's already thinking about opportunities. But before we get off track and you got a hard stop, I want to talk about your mastermind. So again, one of the Stell Savage things you've been doing is building this, you know, 100k a month to a million a month mastermind where you have all these really great clients. A lot of people we've heard of you just started advertising it, but you've already what, an eight figure run rate on it. Can you talk a little bit about the mastermind?

Yeah, I don't know if, I don't know if 8 figure run rate is super accurate, but yeah, so basically what happened was, you know, we were doing the sales training, sales consulting, sales recruiting and man, we had like all these like top industry names, you know, who are using our service. And not even, just not even top industry names, but also people, you know up there, you know, they were doing 200 grand a month to a million a month. Like a lot of folks, like almost all the people who are really doing big things in the industry at one point have been through our stuff. And I was thinking, you know, man, we should really start to start a mastermind because we already have access to all these people. And so we did, I think it was in August of 2021. And so we sold a bunch of people in right away. And then, you know, what we do is we just after people, you know, as they're working with us on the sales team side of things, we just have an offer to continue working with us with a more kind of mastermind slash like advisory element with all the continued stuff they get on the front end from the sales team and a lot of people take us up on that. The retention is actually really, really good. And so that's a little bit different. I mean, they get all the sales team consulting, sales recruiting related stuff that they got before, but then now what they also get is they get access to me, my executive team, and really my entire team personally. So like their executives can work with our executives and they can work with me and they can kind of download a lot of the sops. We've used to go from zero to two and a half million a month into their company. And then on top of that, you know, we have several events a year and then obviously like the community aspect. Right. So what's really important is that I found, you know, I've joined a ton of masterminds and I found that most of them either number one, they're with people from all different industries. So like you have somebody from, you know, like there's one I'm in right now and granted it's, it's a, it's a fine experience. But like, okay, it's, it is seven, eight figure and nine figure entrepreneurs but they're from like every which way different industry that there is. So it's like, okay, that's great. At least it's high level people who've done stuff. But like am I going to really leave with strategies to copy and paste in my business and do differently like that Maybe yes, maybe no. And I wouldn't discount the value of learning different industries because you get different perspectives and stuff like that.

Cross pollination.

Yeah, yeah. But sometimes it's like frustrating. You're like, dude, I just wish it was like people who are like, have my business. The other aspect is that like if the ones that are concentrated in this industry are like newbies, a lot of the times like you know, you go and you're like okay, like you know, if you're even doing a hundred grand a month, you're like, I'm the most advanced person here. So ours is a minimum, typically about 70k a month and at maximum, I mean, shit, you know, we have people in there doing several, several million a month. So that's kind of the range, you know. But I always say it's, it's really dedicated to help people go from a seven figure mark to an eight figure mark and do all the stuff they need to along the way to be able to get there. So I don't know if it's doing eight figures. Maybe it is. I guess if you counted contract, you know, when I throw out These numbers, like 30 million a year, this is cash, right? So if you count, it's not contracts. So if you count a contract value, like how many deals we've sold times the contract, hell Maybe it is 15 million a year or something like that. But I know cash wise, I don't think it's quite there yet, but it's certainly up there. I mean it's a huge profitable part of our company.

What were some of the things that you thought would work that didn't or that you learned along the way that ended up working better in general or.

Just for the master?

For the mastermind specifically.

Interesting. You know, I think we're still learning a lot. You know, I think, I think what people really, you know, here's the biggest thing I think with this is like some people do really good job at events. Other people, they will make it more of like a course. Other people, it's more like one on one coaching and group coaching. We kind of combine everything into one model with the mastermind elements. Right. So it's, it's. They have the events, they have the community aspect. They also have really an entire course of every single SOP and like it just, it's just zero. Like not zero, but I'd say this course that I've created could take you from 25k a month to a million a month. And extremely in depth. Extremely. You know, and it is a lot to be candid. So there's that there's also access to me. There's also access to my executive team because I mean at this point, man, there's stuff I don't even know. Like I'm like, you know what, like you're asking me a question. I don't even do that anymore. You're gonna have to ask like so and so. So there's access there as well for them to work with my executive team or even their executives work with my executive team, which helps a lot. Like their sales manager talked to my sales manager that, so it's also an advisory in that sense. So I feel like having the combination of elements there is really, really, really, really key. I would say that's the biggest thing. Other than that, you know, I think, I think we're still learning a lot. I think that I don't know if we've had a ton of like takeaways or things we didn't think that work that we changed. But that's kind of my top of mind.

No, that's great. That's really helpful. And then what were some of the masterminds you liked the most that you did, John? You're like, wow, they're really doing it right.

Yeah. So, you know, it's hard to say because it's, you know, I think it's different for everybody. I always enjoyed Sam Evans Quantum Mastermind because it's with people of my industry right now. Granted, I'm like, me and another guy are like the biggest ones in there by far. You know, we're, we're both doing about the same level of, of revenues.

I think you're doing more than Sam at this point because he scaled down, right?

Yeah, you know, but he's got different goals and he's working on software.

And by the way, we throw a lot of big numbers around. Nobody, like, don't get the comparison thing. Like, I fight this too. I was actually, you know, just to be candid, watch your video the other day, and I just had a pity party and I was like, I suck for a good, you know, a couple hours. And I'm like, I'm your buddy. And it still happens to me because, like, you know, you see people that are just crushing it and you're like, fuck, what am I even doing here? I suck. You know, why don't I even bother? You know? And then you just got to come back like, why are you doing it? What are your goals? And if your goals are misaligned to what you're doing, then, yeah, make a change. But this happens, everybody, at every level. I'm sure you have people you look up to.

I was watching an Alex for Bozzi video today, and he was saying he was doing 13 million a month, and I was like, oh, dude, I suck. So anyways, so, yeah, but I've always enjoyed Sam's because it's specifically for people in our industry. And honestly, the people are pretty cool too. Like, it's not a lot of, like, flexing, you know, masterminds that are like that. You know, I just, I'm in 100m. I have not attended yet, but I'm already like. I'm like, I'm pre sued to like it for some reason. I feel like it's a good one. You know, I. Because I didn't go to the first one. You think when you spend 100 can of Master, I was going to say.

You had a whole shoe.

Right? So I didn't go, but I was like, man, going to watch this on Instagram, and it looks pretty dope. I was like, you know, and I don't know how good the speakers were, how good the speakers weren't, or I don't know, any of that stuff, but it did look like, you know, they threw on a good event. So, like, I'm excited for that one. Sounds good. And I typically hear good feedback for the people that are in it. Other than that, I mean, if you're a hardcore direct response person, Todd Browns is, is great. Like, I mean, he's. I Think in terms of teaching direct response, he's the best. If you're a software person. Dan Martell's is great.

Yeah, Dan's great.

I'm probably forgetting some, man. I've been in a ton. There was a point man, where I was in like 11 of these.

Yeah, it's too many. I've been in like four. My limit's four. If I'm in more than four, I gotta, I got an X1.

Oh, dude. Four is even like a lot.

You know.

Four is like a lot.

You know you actually show up if you're just buying them and whatever, it doesn't matter.

But that's.

Yeah, yeah, I'm in war room. That's been okay. I mean it's been good. I shouldn't say okay, like it's bad. I mean it's been good. Yeah. I can't think of any others. I was a part of Alex Becker's SaaS Master. Even though I didn't launch a SaaS, I was like, I'm just enjoying. Seems like cool thing. I was a part of that and we only had one event and then he kind of disbanded it. But that was good too. So, you know, I also just always try to extract value out of it. My expectations generally, this will sound bad, they're generally really low. And I don't mean that like I'm like, oh, like it's gonna be shit. I just, for me, I just don't feel like I need to get a lot out of it to get my money's worth.

And like you get one good idea. Could be huge for you.

Yeah. And I also, you know, if I also like if I go to some events and I pay attention and I meet some people and I get some business and I also, especially if they add like some course material I can go through, if like all these things can happen and be true, then like generally for me it's kind of like a no brainer.

So net net, you know, looking back, the Mastermind's been a win for you guys?

Oh yeah.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, I mean it's really our backend offer to our B2B. So like. Yeah, it's huge and it really helps just profitability overall, you know. So like we don't have it, we don't have a. We do have a back end, but it's not as profitable. We just launched it so it's not, it's not apples to oranges, but it's, it's newer so it's not as big obviously as our, as our B2, B1 that we've been doing almost for a year now. And you could feel it in the P and L like that. That back end just helps. You have so much more profit. I mean, you know, that's any business.

Well, I'm going to spend. You can spend with more confidence. Sorry, jj, go ahead.

No, you're fine. I just want to share this real quick as a conversation with a friend of mine. That's in your mastermind call. I was asking, you know, they're doing freaking awesome. What's. What's scaling your business. And this is no joke. This is a direct quote from my text. I had to search for it.

That's why it took a second.

Eight figure boardroom with Cole has added 300k to our business since November.

Dude, that's a testimonial. He should be sending that text to me. I don't even know who that is.

Well, I don't want to call him out on here, but I'll send it to you in messenger.

Well, that's so awesome. Jj, we got any good comments or questions real quick before we wrap up? We got a few more minutes and.

Then we'll just some fire and a couple other things. No questions yet.

No questions.

I guess we nailed it. All right, gang. Well, thank you so much. If you're watching live, hashtag live in the comments. If you're watching the replay, hashtag replay, hit us up with questions. I'll be happy to. If they're, you know, stuff we haven't covered, I'll be happy to send them Coles way and hopefully we get them answered sometime in the future. Cole, thank you so much for taking the time, man. I know how busy you are. I'm so grateful to know you and to be a friend and brother and just to see you grow and expand over these few years that we've known each other. It's been exciting to watch, and I'll try not to compare myself too much.

You know, we'll all do the same, man. We'll all do the same.

Absolutely, brother. Well, have a blessed day and thank you so much and talk to you guys soon. Oh, and check out closers IO if you're interested in call services. You got a lot of great stuff.

All right, we'll see you guys.